Aiden sipped his wine, slow and deliberate, letting it linger against his tongue before swallowing.
The taste was sharp, a blend of sealed grapes aged past their prime, heavy with the metallic ghost of alcohol.
It clawed at his throat, searing hot as though it wished to remind him that mortals needed such things to burn life into their veins.
He did not.
He did not need food, nor water, nor wine, nor the thousand petty indulgences that men clung to for survival.
And yet here he was, sipping it anyway, measuring the weight of its heat as though testing how far it could reach into him.
He had not expected the dizziness. A faint haze coiled around his temples, as if the strong vintage carried a whisper of some forgotten poison.
His lips curled faintly. 'So even I am not immune. Strange, how easily one forgets weakness when it rarely knocks at the door.'
